Athenahealth will acquire Healthcare Data Services, which develops data analysis and population management tools to providers and payers, in a transaction expected to close in October.

Several patient-centered medical home pilot programs using payment incentives to encourage care coordination, preventive care and shared decision-making are making progress toward their cost and quality objectives.

Texas health regulators have slapped Parkland Health & Hospital System with a $1 million fine, the payment of which will let the Dallas institution off the hook for serious compliance failures that took place before May 31 of this year.

The Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange (WEDI) issued an updated ICD-10 implementation timeline to account for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recent decision to extend the ICD-10 compliance deadline from Oct. 1, 2013 to Oct. 1, 2014.

The College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) issued a response to an Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) request for information on health IT-enabled quality measurement published in the Federal Register on July 20.

Pay for performance has captured the fancy of policymakers in the U.S., U.K. and Australia, which have integrated financial incentives or disincentives into national healthcare programs. But these efforts may be based on weak evidence, according to an analysis published online Aug. 14 in BMJ. The authors provided a checklist to guide policy makers past pitfalls while an editorial dissected the assumptions behind the pay-for-performance concept.

PROVIDENCE, R.I.Women and Infants Hospital of Rhode Island hopes to expand the care it provides preterm babies and their families with a $3.2 million grant from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) healthcare innovation awards program. All four of Rhode Islands congressional lawmakers met with local providers at the hospital on Aug. 15 to hear how the money will help them deliver higher quality care at lower costs.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is seeking public comment to inform a new version of an ICD-10 industry readiness assessment, which the agency will use to survey 1,200 healthcare stakeholders from various sectors to gauge progress made toward the transition to ICD-10, according to an Aug. 10 notice in the Federal Register.